Created pre-COVID, Eric Church's “Heart & Soul” emerges on the other side, as he heads for #1

At first listen, it’s easy to assume Eric Church‘s Heart & Soul was written in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. But the CMA Entertainer of the Year reveals that wasn’t the case at all.

“‘Never Break Heart’ was a great sentiment at the time, but this was pre-COVID when we did this and it was an even better sentiment after COVID happened,” Eric explains. “The whole project, I’ve said, was divine in a way where we made music that we didn’t know we were making for the future.”

The Chief wrote and recorded his chart-topping Heart & Soul triple album in January of 2020, sequestering everyone and everything he needed at Artisanal restaurant in the Blue Ridge Mountains of his native North Carolina. The music that emerged now seems like an eerie foreshadowing of the days to come.

“A lot of people think that we made this in the COVID era, in the quarantine area. It’s not true,” Eric says, straightening out the misperception. “We made this before that happened. But this song sounds like it was a direct response to COVID and to what everybody was going through.”

Clearly, it’s a sentiment that still resonates, as his latest single, “Hell of a View,” is poised to become his latest #1, the first since 2019’s “Some of It.” Eric’s set to kick off The Gather Again Tour this September in Lexington, Kentucky. 

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